Let's talk about statistics

Basketball, as every sport, has the ability to be observed, studied, measured and analyzed, in order to know the real performance of a player and/or team within the court, and thus, in which aspects of the game we can improve. Some of them are measurable and some others don’t. Anything that can be translated into numbers -in short, into something tangible- it’s called statistics. Through statistics, one can know how a player and/or team plays, but also we can check out which strengths and weaknesses are manifest.

Every player, depending on its position, will generate statistics of one topic more than the other. For example, we expect from a point guard, being that who give more assists; from a shooting guard, that who attempts the most of the three-point shots and, with the point-guard, those who steal the ball; from a power-forward and from a center, we expect they provide most of the two-point shots, rebounds (such offensive and defensive) and blocks. (A small forward, by the way, uses to have more balanced numbers, and, depending how close he plays from the rim, some of them will have more tendency to shoot and others to grab more boards).

However, we are talking about "common places", it means, stereotypes. There’s not a strict rule, and, up to a certain point the role who every player must assume tends to blur under the game’s action. In addition, basketball is unique in the sense that all players can do everything: despite the existence of well-defined roles, there is no statistical section that is specific to a player just because he plays a specific position. In football and handball, only the goalkeeper can catch the ball with his hands in the area; in baseball, although there are both batting and fielding statistics, pitchers and catchers have statistics of their respective roles. However, in our sport we can see how all the possible statistical sections (points made from free throws, two and three-point shots; offensive and defensive rebounds; assists; steals; turnovers; blocks; and personal fouls) are being made in more or less extent by the five players on the hardwood. Thus, to find guards who grab rebounds, power-forwards who can score three-pointers or even centers who lead a statistical assist ladder for a season, is not a chimera.

Still, there is a way to deduce a little more accurately, what kind of profile has a certain player, because depending on the relationships between the different criteria, being total or average, we can also infer what game style every player has. For example, a player who averages between ten and twelve points per game, but nine of which are product of three triples is a compulsive scorer, maybe a serial killer, but his contribution is limited to shoot from long distance. And if he has half a steal per game, we can infer he isn’t a bad defender, but a little bit “lazy”. A single data doesn’t determine how is he playing, but the combination of two or more variables –in this case, three three-pointers with half a steal, playing a normal amount of minutes per game- and its relation between them, will lead us to a diagnosis that in the best case is not a hundred percent reliable.

The individual movement without the ball, either in defense or attack, as well as how to attack or defend the rim, are intangible factors non computable by numbers. Those factors will be conveniently analyzed in a forthcoming report.